Read Chapter 26: The Rooftop Flight

The tiles cracked under Élodie's boots, sending a loose shard skittering into the gutter below. She flattened herself against the slope of the roof, her shoulder burning where the bullet had grazed it, and listened. Below, boots hammered against cobblestones, muffled shouts echoing through the narrow alley Bouchard's safe house backed onto.

Roussel crouched beside her, one hand steadying the chimney pot as he scanned the roofline ahead. His breathing was even, controlled, as if scaling Paris's rooftops were a Sunday stroll. "Two streets down," he whispered, his lips barely moving. "The rue des Lombards. There's a window on the fifth floor."

"This way," Amélie said, pointing past a cluster of chimneys before falling silent, shrinking back against Élodie's side.

Élodie squeezed her sister's hand. Since the cart, since the chaos of the Place de la Révolution, Amélie had spoken barely a dozen words. Her eyes were still glassy with shock, her dress torn at the hem, inked with the filth of the prison cart's floor. But she was breathing. She was alive. That was all that mattered.

"You've been here before," Élodie said quietly, watching Roussel's deliberate movements.

He didn't answer immediately. He edged forward, testing the gap between two buildings, then leapt across—a gap of nearly a meter. He landed with the soft pad of a cat on the opposite ledge and turned back. "There was a time I needed to move without the streets knowing. Come on. Keep low."

Élodie rose, wobbling as a gust of wind swept off the Seine. The city spread beneath her, a patchwork of shadows and weak candlelight, the great shadow of the guillotine's platform looming at the place they'd just escaped. She pushed the vision of the blades down and ran at the gap, jumping.

She landed hard, her wounded shoulder absorbing the impact. A spike of pain shot through her, white and blinding. Her hand flew to the wound, coming away wet.

Roussel caught her before she stumbled, his fingers closing around her upper arm—gentle despite the urgency. "Let me see it later. It's not far now."

Behind her, Amélie hesitated at the edge. Élodie reached back. "Amélie, come. Don't look down."

Her sister squeezed her eyes shut and jumped.

The window on the rue des Lombards was unlit and unremarkable, three panes of grimy glass set into a mansard attic. Roussel tapped a pattern against the frame—three quick knocks, a pause, two slower ones. A moment later, the window creaked open.

A man's face appeared, weathered and thin, with spectacles pushed up over a balding crown. He squinted at them, then at Roussel, and his expression shifted from suspicion to something closer to dread. "Roussel. God above. You bring the whole National Guard to my door?"

"Just the three of us, Étienne. And the debt you owe my father."

The forger hesitated, then stepped aside, motioning them into the dark warmth of his apartment. The scent of ink and lamp oil filled the space, and papers covered every surface—engravings, counterfeit assignats, half-finished documents pinned to the walls like drying laundry.

Élodie sagged against the nearest wall, and Roussel guided her to a chair by the window. He pulled a cloth from his pocket, wet it with water from a jug, and pressed it to her shoulder. She hissed through her teeth.

Bouchard had dressed the wound before they'd fled—a ragged tear from a ball that had clipped her, not lodged deep. But it had bled through the bandage during the climb. Roussel worked quickly, cleaning, reapplying pressure, until the cloth came away pink rather than red.

"You're lucky," he said quietly. "Another inch and it would've been your lung."

"I feel lucky," Élodie managed through the pain.

Behind them, Étienne lit a lamp, casting long shadows across the cramped room. He looked at Roussel with the wary deference of a man who owed his life to another and couldn't believe the price had come due.

"How bad," the forger asked, "is it out there?"

"Fontaine's dead," Roussel said flatly. "Barrel will turn Paris upside down before dawn."

Étienne's face went pale, but he nodded. He gestured to a narrow bed in the corner. "The girl can rest. I'll keep watch from the roof."

Roussel nodded. He rose, offering Élodie a hand. "Amélie should lie down. And you."

Élodie took his hand, pulling herself upright. Her body felt like a string pulled too tight, ready to snap. But as she turned toward the bed, she found Amélie already there, sitting stiffly at the edge, her hands folded in her lap. Her face was blank, far off.

Élodie crossed the room and knelt before her sister, taking those cold hands between her own. "Amélie. We have to go. The streets are closing in."

Amélie looked at her then, and the blankness flickered. Behind it, anger, fear—and something else. Something Élodie didn't have a name for.

"You promised," Amélie whispered. "The morning of the cart, I looked for you. They said you'd escaped. I thought—" Her voice cracked. "I thought you left me to die."

Élodie pressed her sister's hands harder. "I would never. I would tear down every wall in Paris before I left you." She paused, the words catching. "I killed a man tonight, Amélie. For you. I would do it again."

Amélie's breath shuddered out. She looked at her torn dress, at the threadbare blanket beneath her fingers. "I know."

"You know what?"

Slowly, Amélie reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was creased and soiled, but the handwriting on it was clear—a tribunal order, stamped with the date of her arrest. Élodie didn't need to read it to know what it said.

"I should have told you," Amélie said. "At the prison, before everything. I found out the day I was arrested." She looked up, and there was something raw in her eyes. "I'm pregnant, Élodie. Nearly three months. The baby's father—" She shook her head. "He was taken by the tribunal weeks ago. I don't know if he's alive."

The room spun. Élodie sat back on her heels, letting the words settle. Pregnant. A child. A future buried somewhere in the chaos of death and retreat and blood.

Amélie's voice was small. "When they put me on the cart, I kept thinking—it's better this way. The child would never know this France. This world." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "But now I'm here, and I don't know what to hope for."

Roussel had come closer, standing in the shadows near the window. He said nothing, but Élodie noticed the way his jaw tightened. The way he looked at Amélie, not with pity, but with something sharper. Recognition, maybe.

Élodie lifted her sister's face toward hers. "We get you out of France. We find a place where this child doesn't know the sound of the drum, or the sight of the blades." She looked up at Roussel. "Is that possible? Switzerland? The border?"

Roussel's gaze moved over her, over Amélie, and settled on Étienne, who had been quietly listening from the door.

The forger cleared his throat. "I can make papers. Good ones. They'll pass a border check if you're careful and calm." He hesitated. "But it takes time. Two days, maybe three. And the cost—"

"I'll pay it," Roussel said. "My debts are not only to my father's name."

Élodie rose, crossing the small room to stand before him. "You've led us from the catacombs to rooftops. You've paid debts you didn't owe." She searched his face, looking for the lie in it. "Why do you keep running with us, Roussel? What do you want from this?"

He held her gaze. In the lamplight, the scars at his temple were pale lines, and his eyes were dark and steady. "I want to make sure you don't die in the gutter," he said quietly. "That's all I've ever wanted since I met you."

The words hung between them, heavier than the weight of the night.

Élodie opened her mouth to answer, but from the roof above came a soft, urgent whistle—Étienne's signal. Three quick notes.

Footsteps on the tiles.

Roussel moved before she could breathe, blowing out the lamp, pressing Élodie flat against the wall nearest the window. In the dark, she felt Amélie's hand find hers again, trembling.

"Stay quiet," Roussel breathed into her ear. "No matter what you hear."

A shadow passed across the window. And then another.

They were pinned.